Coming Home
by T'eyla
Summary: Episode tag for Voyage of the Damned. The Doctor comes home, and the TARDIS isn't happy with him. Fluffy TenTARDIS ficlet, lots of spoilers.


**Title**: Coming Home  
**Author**: T'eyla  
**Beta**: Wihluta  
**Spoilers**: LotTL, Time Crash, Voyage of the Damned  
**Pairing**: Ten/TARDIS  
**Rating**: G  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine.  
**AN**: Episode tag to VotD. Just a little bit of Doctor/TARDIS fluff. Sadly, I'm a total Who n00b - I've seen all of New Who, but only a couple of Peter Davison episodes as far as Classic Who is concerned - so I apologize for any canon mistakes I might have made.  
Feedback more than welcome:) Enjoy.

* * *

"Doctor!"

The Doctor turned his head and squinted through the falling snow - ash - whatever - at the blurred figure of Mr. Copper.

"I won't forget her."

The Doctor nodded slowly and squinted up into the darkness of Christmas Night. For a moment, he thought he could see a flurry of blue sparkle, but then he shook his head. There was nothing there.

He turned his eyes away, pushed open the door and stepped inside his TARDIS.

The familiar orange glow greeted him, as well as a comfortable warmth that was very welcome after the cold of the British winter night. The Doctor took a deep breath, filling his nostrils with the familiar smell of his home, and felt a tiny smile tug on the corner of his mouth.

"Home sweet home, eh," he muttered as he walked up and around the control console and settled down on the broad captain's chair. He had to brush quite a bit of dust off the seat, and as he let his eyes wander over the floor, he saw the two _Titanic_ life belts lying between bits of TARDIS wall and more dust. He sighed.

"What a mess."

He knew he should clean this up right now before he ended up putting it off forever - he did have a tendency to do that - but for the moment, he stayed where he was. It was as if he were waiting for something or someone to acknowledge his presence. This was his home, someone should notice he'd returned.

Nobody did, though, and so he pushed himself off his chair and walked around the console to the cleaning controls. As he went, he idly ran his fingers over the panels - and hesitated.

They felt cold.

The Doctor frowned and stopped, putting his palm against the smooth surface of a control panel. It felt decidedly colder than usual to the touch. Slightly worried, he began running his hand over the surfaces of the console. The temperature did seem unnaturally low.

Suddenly, as he passed his fingers over one of the levers, there was a small blue spark, and an electric charge rather painfully pricked the ball of the Doctor's thumb. He yelped and pulled his hand back.

"Ow! What was that for?"

Next to the lever he'd just touched, a purple light started blinking rather angrily. The Doctor, who'd been rubbing the hurting part of his palm with the thumb of the other hand, ceased in his movements. "What?" he asked. "You're mad at me? Why?"

The light continued to blink, more rapidly now, and a low angry hum started up deep in the bowels of the TARDIS. The Doctor lowered his hands and slipped them into his pants pockets, feeling a little sheepish. "Alright, I'm sorry," he said. "I know the past few months have been a little rough on you. But that was mostly the Master's fault."

The hum grew louder and the Doctor tilted his head. "Jack did what?" He frowned. "Well, I admit that might have been a little drastic, but time was short, and we needed the paradox machine destroyed. And I did rebuild, you know."

The humming didn't cease, and the orange lights on the walls flickered once. The Doctor flinched guiltily. "I know, that was entirely my mistake. And I'm sorry. But didn't you enjoy meeting your old self? I most certainly did."

The lights flickered again, and then went out completely for a brief moment before they came back on a lot brighter than before. The Doctor squinted and ducked his head. "It was an accident! I was about to put the shields up when she crashed into us. I wasn't-"

The lights flared and then went out completely, leaving the whole room in the dark. The Doctor let his shoulders sag. "Oh, come on. That's what this is about?" He waited, but his surroundings stayed dark. He sighed. "I was trying to keep the _Titanic_ from crashing into Buckingham Palace. Of course I was excited. I was also scared silly."

The lights flickered once, but other than that, nothing happened. "I wasn't having "too much fun" flying her," the Doctor said, slight exasperation creeping into his voice. "I was trying to complete a very complicated and delicate flight manoeuvre with a ship designed to function as transport on a pleasure cruise in order to save the Earth and every one of the six billion people living on it. And you, by the way," he added, nodding even though he knew no-one would see it. "You were on that planet as well."

For a moment, the darkness remained, but then the lights came back on, very slowly, almost reluctantly. The Doctor sighed. "Come on. Do you really think I'd prefer a big ugly tin bucket like that ship over you?" He grinned. "Where would I park it?"

The humming in the console had stopped, and as the Doctor watched, the colour of the blinking light turned to green and slowed down a little. He smiled. "That's right. Now, let's get this cleaned up, and then let's get out of here. What do you say?"

He completed his circle around the control console, and as he passed an air vent, a light, gentle breeze brushed over his forehead and ruffled his hair.


End file.
